


Latula Won’t See: the Tragedy of a Stifled Redglare in Three Acts

by thatsrightdollface



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bittersweet, Character Analysis, Dream Bubbles, F/M, Introspection, Other, THIS ISN'T A VERY FLUFFY STORY, just a warning, love and hope and all that jazz, relationship imbalance, ~self discovery~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 16:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1694420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Latula forgot what it had been like before, when Mituna (her boy – hers, wasn’t he, after these thousands of sweeps?) had really looked at her.  Not through a techno Game Bro visor.  Not through his own hair, grown wild and heavy to hide the way his forehead had melted off like scorched plastic.</p><p>That’s when she went for walks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Latula Won’t See: the Tragedy of a Stifled Redglare in Three Acts

Sometimes Latula forgot what it had been like before, when Mituna (her boy – hers, wasn’t he, after these thousands of sweeps?) had really looked at her. Not through a techno Game Bro visor. Not through his own hair, grown wild and heavy to hide the way his forehead had melted off like scorched plastic. 

(His head had been smoking then, when Kurloz had carried him back like a limp doll – his brain sizzled, skin squirming like his face had turned liquid, blood dripping from his ears. He’d had blood hardened between his teeth for days; no one could hold him still enough to clean them. 

He smelled like ozone. He smelled like a burning building. He smelled like a lightning strike. 

Kurloz had laid him on the ground at her feet and stood up, silent, staring into her face. Was he hollow? Was he smiling? It didn’t matter. He laid Mituna at her feet.) 

Sometimes Latula forgot, because it was so long ago. Her own life was becoming like a story in a book. 

Once upon a time Mituna had a smooth way of walking and soft hair; once upon a time he’d dragged her around behind him and called her Arm Candy with that little tic-of-the-lip smile of his, barely a smile at all. Once upon a time she made herself a costume like his – no, an outfit like his, because she wore it so long it wasn’t a costume anymore. To impress him. So he’d raise his eyebrows and say, “That’s fine.” So he’d stay and talk with her a while. 

Once upon a time Mituna would whistle low and say, “Come on, girl. I’d ask you to do better than that, but we all know you can’t.” He said that sometimes when they were all alone, and “we” meant he thought so, really. 

She egged him on; she gave him the setups so he could lean his head back, eyes closed, lips pursed and tell it like it really was. Once upon a time Mituna had something to say about everything, and at the very least he liked to make her laugh. 

Once upon a time Mituna’s slick plastic exterior would drip away and he’d be in her arms, hands in her hair; he’d be saying, “Sorry, sorry, baby, Latula baby,” and he’d be making sure he was alright. He was still cool. He was still in control, and she was beside him. 

Somehow it was worth it. Latula still thought it was worth it, though it hurt just a little to know how much more often he’d said her name in a bad mood than any other time. 

Now he couldn’t stop saying her name. It was one of the few words, in fact, she could almost always hear from him. 

Sometimes Latula forgot when Mituna hadn’t been afraid of being touched, afraid of losing her. Forgot him how he was back before he needed anyone at all. That’s when she went for walks. 

She went to look in on different lives, sometimes. They all watched Alternia play out, of course, like listening to a slow, sad piece of music – totally un-rad, but you might not have the heart to turn it off. 

There were lives and lives and lives there, too many versions of herself, so many she could fill a thousand volumes if she were lame enough to write it all down like Aranea or Meulin might be. 

ACT ONE: The Psiioniic

There was a man like Mituna, but older, but sweeter – his smirks had softened after getting chased out of towns, after having a cruel price put on his head. She thought maybe the way he ducked and scowled was wary, was worried. She liked the way he put his hand on this strange older-Kankri’s back, leading him away from things. She rewound and fast-forwarded her way through his life; he taught, like the Signless, and at first he’d sounded holier-than-thou, sounded like he knew all his shit and everyone else had better keep up. 

That was like the Mituna she knew. He used cheat codes because winning made games fun; he snuck peeks at strategy guides if he couldn’t get through levels fast enough. He played through everything so many times he could do it in his sleep, but Latula knew. Latula saw it wasn’t effortless. And things weren’t so easy for this man, either. After another disciple, like him, was cut down by an imperial scythe he practiced using his psionics against trees and stones. He got flecks of rock in his hair, working to go faster and faster, get stronger and stronger. Asking the Signless the littlest questions so he could sound smarter when he stood alone before the masses. 

His voice got slower and deeper and warmer the longer he taught. He began to look at his friends gently. He began to say “Sorry” less and “What do you mean?” more. Latula thought maybe she was proud, and maybe she was sad. He was taller than her Mituna would ever be. 

He said things like, “Signless, this is foolishness – your Disciple will worry for you.” He meant that he would worry, too, Latula was sure. 

Perhaps that meant her Mituna had worried about her, before. 

He said, “Dolorosa, let me cook. Get some rest,” and he held the woman’s arm, sometimes. He escorted her to her tent and then stood for a moment outside the door flap, thinking. Sometimes he hinted he would rather share his hive with a matesprit than a kismesis, and Latula thought, “Sweet.” 

Sometimes he took strange trolls into his tent for days on end, speaking to them in that smirking little murmur he had and kissing their necks so they could feel his teeth. They never stayed long. 

Latula watched them all go, and at first she’d been surprised none of them looked like her. 

This man that was like Mituna but wasn’t Mituna at all would sit with his hands folded around his knee and listen to older-Kankri speak of a world with all of them young and working together for some severe and glorious goal. The way Kankri talked about their world made it seem like a party. Everyone vibrant, everyone collaborating. It wasn’t really like Latula remembered. 

(They were visions, after all. Watercolor miracles Kankri saw when he closed his eyes. That would have to change things.) 

Kankri mentioned her, sometimes, and his voice had an apologetic lilt Latula didn’t understand. 

“She loved you,” he told not-Mituna, not-MT, “She thought she needed you. She didn’t, but she thought she did, you lucky son of a bitch.” 

“And I loved her, too?” Mituna asked, and Latula found herself chewing her lip. 

“Sure,” Kankri said. 

“Where is she? You’ll let me know when we meet her, yeah?” 

“She won’t be born for sweeps, I think,” Kankri said. Did he sound sorry? Did he sound overly sweet? 

“Oh. I would’ve liked to know her, I guess.” 

That wasn’t bad. Maybe he’d have sat with his hands folded around his knee and listened to her, too. Maybe her Mituna would have done that, given enough time. 

ACT TWO: Judgment Day

Of course, it couldn’t last – the preaching, the trudging through worlds of hurt, the flipping off Her Imperial Condescension with a thoughtful smile. 

(We’re equals. We’re all trolls alike, all varied, all wonderful, all horrible. We’re equals bleeding on a grey rock hurtling through apathetic void, clutched in the hand of a monstrous angel. 

We’re all rad. We all mean something. We all get to finish our sentences; we get to wear the clothes we like without getting laughed at. We all get to say “Stop it” when we mean it, and that doesn’t make us uncool.) 

Of course it couldn’t last, but when the hordes came, armies with sharp fangs and sharper blades, armies slathered in special stardust and paint, whooping as they gut the Signless’s believers and clubbed their brains into the sand, so many ran away. So many of the devout, so many of the faithful, so many of the optimistic. So many fled and renounced equality; they fell back into their caste roles like water dripping into cracks in the concrete. 

But not Mituna. Not the man that would have been Mituna. He still put his hand on Kankri’s back and used his crackling mind to blast their way through the crowd – he battered clowns into the cliffs. He seared them in two. He bellowed for the Dolorosa to run, and he was a thunderstorm incarnate. 

He was awesome, but he fell. 

He was a friend; he was a brother. They dragged him before the judge, thin yellow blood trickling from behind his ears and grit rubbed into his eyes so they couldn’t spark so well. They threw him at the Grand Highblood’s feet, just as Kurloz lay Mituna down before Latula, awaiting a verdict. He received a sentence. He was made to say his penance before the Mirthful Gods, sure, sure, and then he was given an honor. He hissed when he learned what would become of him; he swore and condemned and blamed. 

He did not despair, not yet. 

He did not renounce the Signless’s teachings, not ever. 

They made Kankri watch when they replaced Mituna’s veins with wires. He chewed his way through his cheeks trying not to scream. Kankri howled enough for both of them. He thrashed against his bonds and wailed, “Release him! He’s done nothing! He is not your property!” But it meant as little as if he had been tweeting on that little whistle of his, shouting something about triggers. Perhaps it meant even less, because the Grand Highblood laughed. 

And there was Mituna, his mind shooting energy wild and terrifying around a whole starship, the empress’s ship, no less, with wires snaking up his nose and in the corners of his eyes. They had cut off his hands and legs, plugging him in like a battery. Even if he could be cut free, he would bleed out in moments. He knew. He always knew. He told the empress to fuck off in little ways, even when his voice choked and sputtered; even when he was more breath and spark than man. She stretched his life out so long, that empress. Meenah. No, she wasn’t Meenah. She stroked Mituna’s face and he trembled with hate. 

At first he raged, and then he was a dead man. Then he was really a battery, and she drove him, screeching like some nightmare machine, far beyond their galaxy. 

He died there, dripping blood on their machine room floor. 

Latula thought she might cry, but instead she lifted her chin a little bit and took some painkillers for a new and pounding headache. Her chest hurt. She reminded Porrim that this meant Mituna couldn’t be so bad. 

“Is he loyal to you like that?” Porrim asked. “Would he have done any of that for you?” 

Latula would never know, and she wouldn’t have wanted him to, anyway. 

That wasn’t the point, really. 

Surely Porrim couldn’t mean fighting for her would be like fighting for the Signless, or, hell, for their stupid tragic planet. 

Porrim said maybe Latula thought Mituna would have stuck up for a little, though, or sided with her in an argument. Something. Maybe he’d have done _something,_ if she’d thought to speak up before the feces collided with the whirling device. Maybe that’s why seeing all this ancient drama meant so much. 

Porrim asked again, “Is he loyal to you like that?” and Latula tried hard to see the Dolorosa’s anguish past her strength, her sweet voice and her curves. 

But Latula could only say, again, that that wasn’t the point. It was better than “1dk, grl,” right? 

ACT THREE: Hunter/Huntress

Latula wandered the past, but there were some things she didn’t see. It could be argued they were some of the most important things. 

Latula didn’t know as much as she should have about Redglare, for instance, or she would have known about the tempests between her and Mindfang, Aranea’s cackling piratesona, her badass self of crashing surf and bloodied lace. If Latula knew about Redglare, she would have seen herself as she couldn’t imagine – free and sharp as steel, straddling the back of a dragon that blocked out the sky. When the Grand Highblood sent her to take Mindfang down, the pirates scoffed – one girl, one little girl still growing into her big old boots, still flipping her hair at the tips and smacking her lips in the mirror in the evening – versus such a dastardly fleet? It must be a joke. It must be a scam. 

The Mirthful Messiahs must want Mindfang and Company to escape. 

No, no, sweetie. 

No, no, you asshole. 

It wasn’t that Redglare was more than a little girl with thin bones and small hands, but that she was herself. She was keen and sharp and tracked those ships down alone, Pyralspite’s tail thrashing against the stars, her wings stirring the ocean into a frenzy beneath her. Redglare smelled fear and greed and guilt on the salty wind; no one could hide from her. She was fire, all-consuming and beautiful – she was holy fire from above, head tossed back and feet very sure, sure especially on unsteady ground. 

She was power with a name that would go down in legend; criminals whispered about her, crouching in despairing places to hide from all she stood for. 

When your name is a synonym for justice, you’re not more than a little girl. You’re a little girl who has what it takes to stand for right and rage and victory. Mindfang looked to the sky and saw her there, a silhouette through the flames. The pirate knew fear, then. She was blinded, she was bleeding. Even later, when she brought the proud Redglare down, Aranea had learned fear in her. That couldn’t be erased. 

Even when the hunter – not huntress, _hunter_ – dangled from her own damn noose, swinging there with a dead-girl’s smile, clutched by the mob she was trying to save, executed by the law she stood for – even then, if Latula had known about Redglare she would have seen what she was capable of alone. She would have seen herself wearing the Signless’s shackles on a string around her neck, fierce and fearless, the one Alternia would remember as a protector, a hero. The crowds were in Aranea’s clutches, and oh how they must have wailed cutting Latula’s body down. 

She would have been the hero, for once, and there wouldn’t have been any guy voice in the forefront of her theme song to lend her a little credibility. She wouldn’t have had to say, “I’m here to show you that girls can be heroes too.” 

She just would have been one. 

Maybe, instead of imagining her Mituna watching her with wide eyes, a blush smearing itself across his cheeks – admiring her legs, muttering, “Dude, Latula, you’re _something,_ ” she would have thought, “That’s me, so maybe I can be all that, too.” 

Sometimes Latula forgot what it had been like before, when Mituna (her boy – hers, wasn’t he, after these thousands of sweeps?) had really looked at her. She went for a walk, then, and remembered all he could be. Her own face – not hers, really, even after so many lives, even after so many times checking herself in the mirror to make sure she was still on straight – wasn’t something she knew she should go looking for. 

That’s alright. 

Her back brushed Mituna’s sometimes in the recuperacoon, and she remembered who she thought she needed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I have lots of feelings about these guys. :') 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the story~! <3 thanks for reading.


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